30 Days Of Writing: Day 24

How willing are you to kill your characters if the plot so demands it? What’s the most interesting way you’ve killed someone?

Oh, this is a no-brainer for me! If the the story logically calls for it, my characters are as good as dead, lol. The only exception I would have is if its the main character, or another character of importance, and I need them to make it to the end of the story in order for certain events to take place. But that doesn’t mean they won’t get their asses kicked while they manage to evade death. There are consequences to “not dying”, lol.

I’ve always enjoyed killing off characters, because of how other writers made me feel when they killed off their characters. Most times, I wound up liking the character even more than when they were alive. You know the old trick. Make the reader like a character and then kill’em on purpose to make them love the character. That character will be remembered forever, especially if their death was unexpected and very dramatic.

A lot of thought has to go into it though, because the “trick” could backfire on you. The other existing characters have to be likable as well, if not, when you kill the targeted character, you maybe killing your entire story at the same time. That’s why you have to have a balanced cast. You don’t want the “likability” of your entire story to hinge on just one character.

The most interesting way I’ve killed a character? Now, that’s a hard one. I honestly can’t say at the moment. There’s been shootings, stabbings, beatings, dismemberment, mutilations, decapitation, etc. I can’t really pick one death that is particularly more interesting than another. The context in which the death occurred maybe interesting, but the death itself, eh.

Think it’s amusing because that is how I am as a reader. The first book I ever read by James Herbert was too gory for me and it bothered me so much, I didn’t read him again for years (the book was The Fog) but then, he mellowed out and wrote “nicer” horror books lol.

J, I killed off a supporting character in my last WIP. She was elderly and she had a massive stroke which she succumbed to. Her death was a crucial event because it brought the two main characters back together in the story after being estranged.